Yemen’s brief democratic affair

IN A sense, Yemen's romance with democracy is moving forward. On February 20th, against a background of shoot-outs in which several people were killed, the country held its first-ever local elections, a liberty denied to most of the Arab world, and particularly to the Arabian peninsula. In fact these elections were little more than a device to rally pro-government votes for a referendum on a series of constitutional amendments, held the same day. These are expected to postpone parliamentary elections, due in April, until 2003, and extend President Ali Abdullah Saleh's own possible time in office for a further four years, to a distant 2013.

The original democratic experiment was born of necessity. The union of north and south Yemen in May 1990 brought together two very different one-party states. In the north, Mr Saleh headed a tribal-based Islamic regime; the south was ruled by anti-tribal, non-sectarian communists. The only hope of keeping the two amicably together was within a multi-party framework. In 1993 Yemen held its first parliamentary election. To the surprise and applause of western governments, this election was largely free and fair. The Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), ex-ruler of the south, won 20% of the votes, and Mr Saleh's General People's Congress (GPC) was reluctantly obliged to share power in a coalition government.

But a year later civil war broke out, and the north delivered a swift and crushing defeat to the ramshackle forces of the south. Democracy has waned ever since. Mr Saleh, whose power has always relied on a patchwork of tribal alliances, won new opportunities to dispense patronage.The YSP boycotted the 1997 parliamentary election, believing it rigged. The GPC's rival in the north, Islah, became the sole parliamentary opposition. Yet Islah and the GPC are famously close: Mr Saleh and Islah's leader, Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar, are friends from the same tribe. The 1999 presidential election became a one-horse race after the YSP's candidate was banned. Voter turnout in the south was reported to be less than 10%.

The new constitutional amendments will continue this trend. By extending the life of parliament, the GPC will lock the YSP out until 2003. And by extending his own mandate, Mr Saleh wins time to groom his 28-year-old son Ahmad for possible succession. Although Ahmad Saleh commands the central security services as well as the army's special forces, he is still considered a political weakling. He has not, as yet, spun the prerequisite web of alliances.

Mr Saleh, who runs a desperately poor country with a GDP of $500 a head, is keen not to alienate the West, which has rewarded his democratic gestures with financial and political support. He probably need not worry. Since the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden in October, with the loss of 17 lives, the United States is far more concerned to see that he keeps extremist groups in check than to fuss about the extent of his stop-go democracy.